The EALA New Champions Program

The Educating All Learners Alliance (EALA)’s New Champions Fund Program is an annual competitive subgrant created to provide unrestricted funding and a one-year mentorship to a leader doing exceptional work at the intersection of equity and students with disabilities or learning differences, including students who are also marginalized, come from underserved communities, or experience poverty. This competitive grant was created to elevate the work and profile of not-yet-recognized leaders who are doing exceptional work but who may struggle to gain recognition in traditional national fundraising and communication efforts. We believe this effort is not just about extending financial capital, but social and human capital.  

In 2023, only the second year after the program’s launch, EALA received an unprecedented number of applications. Over 170 leaders from across the nation applied for the opportunity to be named 2023 New Champion to grow their work. For many applicants, this was their first grant application experience. Upon attending the New Champions office hours created to support early-stage grant applicants, applicants remarked on the impact this program was able to provide. For those who had applied to grants before, this was the first program they encountered that could provide feedback on applications not chosen and grow the capacity of the sector. The office hour sessions not only answered their questions on the grant, but also provided space for applicants to meet and hear from other leaders from across the country who are also centering equity and students with disabilities – a first for many in the room.

Meet the 2023 New Champion: Kim Riley

In 2019, Kim Riley founded The Transition Academy (TTA) with a mission to make economic inclusion a reality for youth with disabilities, especially for young people of color who have been historically failed by systems. As the mom of a young adult son who was not adequately prepared to be successful after high school, she designed this organization as a solution to this problem impacting her family and others like hers. She gathered families, teachers, counselors, employers, colleges and universities, Social Security Benefits counselors, and others to form The Transition Academy (TTA), where mostly African American students with disabilities in the Kansas City, Missouri Public School system could participate in actively creating their paths forward beyond graduation and to close the opportunity gap that existed. 

In 2022, Riley held the first-ever Greater Kansas City DiversAbility College and Career Fair, a free metro-wide event bringing representatives from universities and employers to help students plan their next steps. In 2023, TTA tripled the number of schools served, exceeding its original target of serving 100 students and their families, and the 2023 KC DiversAbility fair drew more than 400 attendees who met one-on-one with college professionals, job recruiters, social security benefits professionals, and others. TTA has exciting plans for their programming in 2023, including bus tours to colleges and universities and new in-class discovery and job training work. TTA is continually evolving to meet the needs of those being served, and plans to use funding from the EALA New Champions Grant to achieve its ambitious 2023 growth goals.

In an introductory blog on The Transition Academy website, Kim states, “For far too long, parents of youth with disabilities have described life after high school as ‘falling off a cliff.’ These feelings of dread are because the preschool to high school process is easy to follow. But life after high school is a different story. And the systems (i.e. employment, benefits) are confusing. In fact, it seems like you need a secret knock and password to understand what employment and benefits opportunities are available and match you or your child’s interests. We, at The Transition Academy, believe every youth of every ability level deserves the right to live a happy and productive life.”

The Power of Representation

The Transition Academy is the only African American-led organization in the Greater Kansas City Area focusing on improving postsecondary outcomes for youth of color with disabilities.

This kind of representation in leadership matters. In her application, Kim shared how this representation helps strengthen communities and provides opportunities for underrepresented youth to see themselves in leadership roles, inspiring them to imagine bigger and bolder dreams for themselves. 

After the print and television media coverage on the impact of the KC DiversAbility College and Career Fair this year, Kim said it was a comment from a 19-year-old African American youth with autism that stood out. According to his mom, he had never experienced people of color in disability leadership. When he saw TTA’s black and brown team, he smiled and pointed to his brown hand and said, “Look mom. They’re black like me.”

A Network of Changemakers

Alongside Kim Riley, both Antoinette Banks of Expert IEP and Nekia Wright of Ujamaa Inc. were named 2023 New Champions Runners Up. Four other leaders were named finalists by the 2023 judging panel: Jillian Moses of The Inspired Community Project, Momi Robins-Makaila of Kamaile Academy, Natalie Tung of Homeworks Trenton, and Luca Guacci of Moran Center of Youth Advocacy.  

The EALA New Champions Program goes beyond individual recognition; it aims to build a community of changemakers who collectively transform education and drive lasting impact. The combined efforts of Kim Riley, Antoinette Banks, Nekia Wright, and past EALA New Champions represent a powerful force for equity, inclusion, and innovation in education. We cannot wait to see where the expanding network of New Champions leads.

Treah Hutchings is the Director of the Educating All Learners Alliance at InnovateEDU.

The post The Importance of Amplifying New Voices in Education: Meet the 2023 EALA New Champion appeared first on Getting Smart.

Why do some edtech tools work well in one district and fail in another? The answer isn’t necessarily the tool, but the context in which the tool is used. Let’s look at how districts can consider their implementation context when looking at technologies they’re using or thinking about adopting.

Context Matters!

The EdTech Evidence Exchange (the Exchange) helps district and state leaders gather evidence about their edtech implementation contexts. By understanding context strengths and weaknesses, education decision-makers can focus on making edtech decisions that are best for their unique circumstances.

Through the Exchange’s EdTech Genome Project, we identified 10 context factors, shown below, as those most likely to influence the success of edtech programming.

Educators conducting school-based research didn’t have a high-quality tool to measure context until recently. By working with hundreds of educators, researchers, and context experts, our Exchange team developed the Edtech Context Inventory (CI), a survey to measure these 10 context factors. With the CI and newly released Office of Educational Technology’s (OET) Edtech Evidence Toolkit, districts, states, and even vendors now have the resources they need to easily integrate context into edtech research and decision-making. 

Conducting Research to Guide EdTech Decision-Making

As an education decision-maker, you may want to know about the effectiveness of an edtech tool but struggle to find relevant research. That’s where the CI and the OET Toolkit come into play! The OET Toolkit describes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s (ESEA) four tiers of evidence and walks you through examples of how to gather evidence about a tool’s efficacy. Here’s a glimpse at how districts or states can use the CI and the Toolkit to guide research.

Tier 4: Demonstrating a Rationale 

Tier 4 research involves building evidence about how an edtech tool is likely to improve educational outcomes when no research is available.

Teams can use the CI to integrate relevant context information into their research. Reviewing context data, a team might ask:

• What are the strengths in my district’s implementation context (e.g., access to devices, internet connectivity) and how can we leverage them to support good edtech use?
• Where should we focus efforts to improve conditions for edtech use?
• Given our context, what improvements will lead to outcomes we want to see?
• How can we ensure equitable edtech use?  

Tier 3: Promising Evidence 

Tier 3 research involves finding relationships between at least two things. For example, Tier 3 research might connect a particular math tool to higher test scores. These connections can be hard to pinpoint because multiple contextual factors can affect how an edtech tool performs.

Using data from the CI, a team can isolate factors influencing edtech use and its benefits. For example, if inventory results suggest educators struggle with finding time to plan how they’ll use a new technology, the team might ask:

• Among educators, is a lack of planning time associated with fewer benefits from edtech use? If so, how can we adjust the daily schedule to give educators more planning time?
• Is sustained use of edtech tools associated with better student outcomes? If so, how can we ensure all district educators have enough instructional time to use edtech tools with students?

Tier 2 (Moderate Evidence) & Tier 1 (Strong Evidence)

Researchers building the highest levels of evidence are looking for cause-and-effect relationships, like whether an edtech tool results in learning. This usually involves more people and more data than research at Tiers 3 or 4. OET’s Toolkit stresses the need to control for things that may interfere with a tool producing an outcome. Because any aspect of an environment’s context can influence whether a tool is effective, it makes sense for education and research teams to integrate context data from the CI into study designs.

Research at Tiers 1 and 2 are more recognizable as traditional research with intervention and control groups. To measure a tool’s impact on learning, for example, some schools may use the tool and some may not. Researchers must ensure schools and student groups are equivalent in ways relevant to achieving outcomes.

The CI supports districts and states with this process by allowing them to review context data when assigning schools to control or intervention groups. Researchers might ask:

• Do schools have significantly different scores for leaders’ communication about technology’s value and purpose? If so, this context feature should be considered when grouping schools.
• Do schools differ significantly in offering professional learning opportunities? If so, this context feature should be considered when grouping schools.

Conclusion

Context matters! For education leaders looking to make evidence-based edtech decisions, it’s time to give context factors their due attention throughout research and decision-making processes. Now, with the EdTech Context Inventory and OET’s Edtech Evidence Toolkit, those conducting school-based research aligned with any ESEA tier of evidence have the resources they need to do so.

The post Context Matters: The Why and How of Building Context into School-Based Research appeared first on Getting Smart.

In schools, classrooms, desks, and online learning environments across the country, educators are showing up daily to provide educational experiences for our students. While balancing the challenges of their personal and professional lives, they’re often responsible for creating the lesson plans that our students learn from. So often those throughout the education sector – researchers, providers, educators, and even parents – all have a common question tying them together: What do students need to help them learn?

Education research is at the heart of this question. The push for evidence-based education interventions has been around long before the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund. Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, and even way back to Horace Mann, education reform efforts have sought to prioritize resources, tools, and supports that elevate student achievement and lifelong learning. While quality education research is happening across the country, too often the answer is “we don’t actually know”.

Currently, education research and development is happening in a vacuum. With information closed off to educators, they’re not able to fully identify or comprehend the resources and interventions that are available and proven to improve teaching and learning.

While serving as a Data Strategist in Chicago Public Schools, I saw first-hand the impact that a lack of research data had in the classroom. There was plenty of data being collected but was siloed and in an inconsistent format for analysis. Teachers spent hours on analysis and researching teaching practices that may improve the student outcomes in their classroom. In absence of information on what works for whom under what conditions, teachers were making decisions based on incomplete information. To exacerbate the problem further, the procurement system was disconnected from the teaching and learning decisions leading to suboptimal outcomes. In my role, I served to alleviate these issues but the process took much longer due to a lack of systematic access to evidence and knowledge mobilization.

It’s through this journey that I found the BIRD-E project, an initiative developed by InnovateEDU. Designed by a diverse group of education, industry, and research stakeholders, the Blueprint for Inclusive Research and Development in Education (BIRD-E), has created the Blueprint. A framework that outlines key data elements that researchers and educators alike can use to design, research, and analyze data that can be used to compare what works for students in which context and situation, the Blueprint seeks to answer our common question. With a standards-neutral approach, our goal is to modernize education research through a common, research-based data language in order to support the development, scalability, and accessibility of education intervention research.

Today, education is one of the few fields without actionable data. If we look at the healthcare industry, we see a well-oiled industry that is grounded in a framework that ties together cross-sector research. Everyone wants a healthcare plan that reflects their current situation – where there’s pain, a specific disease or ailment, or even trying to maintain a current health status. But in order for a doctor to effectively diagnose an issue and create a healthcare plan that takes into account a patient’s unique physical makeup and lived experience, doctors start with a universal framework. The current education research system is lacking that shared common language, or Blueprint, resulting in our collective inability to understand what works for specific student groups.

The roadmap to healthcare has saved lives. The stakes are equally high when it comes to education – where students’ future success and livelihoods are at stake. As all providers come together to speak a common language and understand a student’s learning journey, and the interventions that make a difference, the Blueprint is there to help.

Susmita Pratihast is the Project Director for BIRD-E.

The post Finding Our Common Language appeared first on Getting Smart.

Staffing shortages are straining school communities around the country, even as new variants of COVID-19 make the pathway forward uncertain.

Schools can use federal funds to create long-term solutions to staffing shortages and create a more diverse workforce that reflects the communities they serve. Key steps:

• Build partnerships with local community colleges and four-year colleges and universities
• Pay teachers-to-be during their training year in the classroom
• Consider student loan forgiveness
• Create incentives for support staff, including tutors and aides, to become fully credentialed teachers

These are challenging times for education leaders everywhere. But amid the hardships and turmoil associated with the pandemic is a chance to make real progress toward achieving a long-standing goal for public education: building an educator workforce that better reflects the diversity of the students schools serve.

Using new funding resources and an opportunity to “reset” school priorities, educators are finding creative, ambitious ways to hire more teachers and other school staff who reflect the communities they serve. That means hiring, supporting, and retaining more teachers and staff of color, whose lived experiences mirror those of the students and families they serve.

“There are so many initiatives right now that are opening the door for a more diverse workforce,” said Monica Martinez, director of strategic initiatives at the Learning Policy Institute. “We’re seeing a momentum shift. … I feel very hopeful about the work that’s being done right now.”

The K-12 student population is more racially diverse than ever before, with Latino students comprising almost 25% of the student population (up from 18% a decade ago) and Black students making up 15%. Asian students represent 6%, and white students 59%, according to U.S. Department of Education data. Some states are even more diverse. In California, for example, non-white students represent well over 75% of the K-12 student enrollment.

But teachers in every state remain overwhelmingly white, according to a 2020 survey by the U.S. Department of Education. Nearly 80% of public school teachers are white, fewer than 7% of teachers are Black, and just 2% are Black men. This indicates that representation is  often not considered in the design of school systems.

But research shows that representation is important as the increased exposure to educators of color correlates directly with students’ ability to visualize and manifest themselves into higher career opportunities. According to the Brookings Institute, Black and brown students scored higher on standardized tests, had higher attendance rates and were less likely to be suspended when they had at least one teacher who matched their race.

Investing in educators of color allows us as a sector (both charter and public, and private) to consider the natural deposit of development and sustainability for the families we serve. Using funds from the Every Student Succeeds Act and American Rescue Plan, schools are now in a unique position to bolster the diversity of their workforces and invest in long-term staffing solutions.  

The key, according to some of the country’s leading experts on the issue, is partnerships – not just with local colleges and universities, but with organizations that can help schools create permanent teacher pipelines.

“This is not easy work. You’ll get further down the road if you engage with an external partner who’s has experience supporting this kind of work,” said Karen DeMoss, executive director of Prepared to Teach at the Bank Street College of Education. “We’ve seen the bumps, and we know how to get around them.”

DeMoss urges schools to expand co-teaching and residency opportunities, which can make teaching a more accessible and appealing career for everyone, especially people of color.

Grow Your Own (GYO) is an educator preparation strategy that focuses on recruiting, developing, and retaining teachers from the local community. GYO models have been effective in both urban and rural areas in addressing shortages and increasing educator diversity, as highlighted in New America’s resource.

Co-teaching allows a novice teacher, or one who’s still in a training program, to share a classroom with an experienced teacher who can serve as a mentor. The advantages are myriad, she said, as the experienced teacher can get some extra help in the classroom and the newer teacher can gain on-the-ground experience from a seasoned veteran. If done well, co-teaching can:

• Reduce discipline referrals, which disproportionately impact student of color
• Reduce the need for remediation, as students can get more individualized attention
• Improve early intervention for students with disabilities, helping students get the help they need sooner.

Paying teachers for their residencies is also a good way to bring in more teachers of color, she said.  

“Most people cannot afford to learn to teach for free, for a whole year. This is not a democratic system of access. And it’s clearly not equitable for students,” DeMoss said, noting that under-prepared teachers are more likely to work in high-needs schools.

Education leaders who balk at paying teachers for their residencies should consider the high cost of teacher turnover, she said. Each time a teacher quits, districts lose an estimated $20,000 in time spent on on-boarding and off-boarding. Instead, schools should put that money toward a system that pays residents a fair wage and retains them over the long term. Funds set aside for professional development can also be used for residencies.      

The Learning Policy Institute’s report, Diversifying the Teaching Profession: How to Recruit and Retain Teachers of Color, describes research on alternative certification routes that do not provide comprehensive preparation and resulting turnover rates among teachers of color.

“Remember, you’re retaining these teachers, so you’ll need fewer of them over the long term,” DeMoss said. “This allows you to have a high-impact teacher preparation program in your district that’s sustainably funded.”

Lisa Thomas, senior education policy analyst at the American Federation of Teachers, said education leaders should look to support staff as a source of teacher diversity. Paraprofessionals, aides and others on campus “already have the experience. They just need the credentials and the pedagogy,” she said. “There’s a real opportunity there.”

Investing in support staff’s professional development is also a great way to demonstrate how much those staff members are valued, she said.

“The pandemic has shown us how important and how essential and how critical the support staff is – our paraprofessionals, our bus drivers, our cafeteria workers, and everyone else that make up the support network in our schools.”

Brent Maddin, executive director of Next Education Workforce at the Arizona State University Teachers College, also urged education leaders to create career pathways for paraprofessionals. He suggested providing them with specialized training, such as in early literacy, and offering them pay raises as an incentive.    

According to Maddin, paying teacher residents – with special priority given to Pell grant recipients and first-generation college students – is also a great way to attract people of color and those from low-income backgrounds to the teaching profession.  

“When we think about equity, we need to think about the amount of debt undergraduates carry when they leave our universities,” he said. “We need to ask ourselves, are there things we can do to create more paid residencies? That can make a big difference.”

Partnering with local community colleges and four-year colleges and universities is a key way for districts to create a pipeline for diverse community members to become teachers. Loan forgiveness and pay for teaching residents are good ways to attract a wider variety of candidates to the teaching profession, Martinez said.

But diversity efforts should not be limited to teaching staff, she added.

What students especially need right now is extra support on campus – tutors, aides, mentors and extended learning staff who can help students with pandemic-related learning loss and overall school engagement.

Districts should use their ESSER and ARP funds to boost support services, bringing more high-quality assistance to students who need it.  

“This is not an argument about reducing class sizes. This is an argument for providing extra support for students,” Martinez said. “It’s about prioritizing wellness and accelerated learning. It’s about evidence-based practices for tutoring and mentoring. … All of our kids are in a different place right now. No two will have had the same experience, and they need all the support we can provide.”

Patrick Steck, senior director for policy at Deans for Impact, echoed Martinez’s support for hiring high-quality tutors, especially in high-needs schools, and then encouraging them to become fully credentialed teachers.

“Mobilizing future teachers as tutors – especially at the district’s highest-need and hardest-to-staff campuses — holds great promise for strengthening partnerships between institutions of higher learning, school districts, and the broader community,” he said.

To do this, districts should strengthen and formalize their ties to local colleges and universities, so future teachers have a seamless transition from their preparation programs to employment.

The benefits are many:

1. Institutions of higher learning can fulfill their missions to serve the local community
2. College faculty can offer future teachers more access to high-quality classroom experiences
3. Future teachers can strengthen their instructional skills, fulfill licensure requirements, and, in many cases, earn compensation
4. School leaders build a sustainable pipeline of highly effective teachers that are likely to understand and stay in their communities 
5. Families gain a valuable addition to their support network 
6. Students gain access to additional academic and social-emotional support.

“By deepening their partnership with educator-preparation programs, school districts can better serve students and strengthen their workforce,” he said. “With deeper partnerships, everyone benefits.” 

Erin Mote is the co-founder of Brooklyn LAB and CEO of the non-profit InnovateEDU. You can reach Erin at @erinmote.  

Kate Cochran is Chief of Staff at the non-profit InnovateEDU.

Chuck Jones is Middle School Director at Brooklyn LAB.

Eric Tucker is the co-founder and Executive Director of Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools.

The post Equity and ESSER: Why Now is the Perfect Time for Schools to Invest in Educator Diversity appeared first on Getting Smart.

Whether it’s performing on a stage, building a robot, or becoming a whiz at Scrabble, everyone has a place where they can excel. Our unique identities are what make being a part of a community so fulfilling.

This is a belief I hold after many years of working with adults and students in various school settings. In my first year working as a dance teacher, I discovered how transformative an art experience can be for students. I was teaching students about different dance styles and important figures in dance history, but the students were really learning how to think creatively, problem-solve, and collaborate with their peers. Over the years, I developed a curriculum that empowered students to work together to create, choreograph, and present their own dance productions. Students who may have struggled academically or behaviorally finally had an outlet to feel successful, in their own way, and on their own terms.

From my experience as an Arts educator, there is a constant struggle of having to prove your program’s importance to school administration. For years I fought to secure time, space, and relevance during the school day, so I decided it was time to transition to an alternative program structure that valued enrichment as much as I do: after-school programming.

After-school programming offers unique opportunities for students to create, explore, and connect that they often don’t have access to during their regular school day. In the era of COVID-19, when many schools removed recess, lunch, arts, and physical education from their schedules, going to an after-school program can be life-saving for students. It offers more than just a resting place for a few hours each day; it is a safe and fun place for students to enjoy while their parents are at work.

I take pride in knowing that many students tell me that they like after school because they can be themselves. As our program at InnovateEDU had to continuously identify new activities and safety measures due to the ever-changing abilities for schools to remain open for in-person instruction, we were persistent in our commitment to ensure students had a reliable place after their school day ended. This could look like the four days per week, in person programming that we offered, with a curated schedule of STEM, arts, and physical activities, or the five days per week, in person programming, where students would engage in whatever activity their energy levels allowed them.

This programming truly makes an impact not only for students, but also for another group of people—the staff. After-school jobs can often offer an entry-level opportunity with on-site training, professional development, and networking. Many of my staff are part-time, juggling multiple responsibilities (e.g., college classes, caring for family members, additional jobs) and this program allows them to tend to other aspects of their life while providing stable, reliable employment.

I am fortunate that my programming was able to continue despite the various closures that many schools experienced across the country. The consistency of our staff served as a resting place for the students who otherwise wouldn’t have one. We’ve discovered the transformative power of sticking together and allowing our creativity to flourish.

Two tips to consider:

• Think about the impacts of after-school and extracurricular activities differently.
• Don’t shy away from finding innovative ways to maintain close relationships, even during times of physical distance.

Aurora Dreger is the Program Director at InnovateEDU’s After School Program.

The post Why After School Matters More than Ever appeared first on Getting Smart.

After five years, I left the classroom I had spent my career building. I felt forced to choose between supporting students and supporting myself.

This is the reality of many educators across the country, as they feel the pressure to ensure quality education is provided for students, while also maintaining their own well-being.

After I left, I began searching for ways to continue to support struggling students—and the teachers like me, treading the waters of the system—to help provide a lifeboat, of sorts. Then, I joined the efforts of the Educating All Learners Alliance (EALA for short), a coalition of over 100 organizations formed as a result of the pandemic and the transition to remote learning, which continues to serve as a hub for educators, administrators, and vendors alike to find best practices to support all students, especially students with disabilities.

As many educators know, when we support the differentiation of learners and value the unique experience of each individual learner, all students benefit. During my time in the classroom, I worked in school districts that provided a curriculum as well as districts that did not. Even with a pre-written curriculum or lesson I had used before, even if I taught that same lesson in both the first and second period, I still needed to shift and adjust my lessons to meet the varying needs across my many students. I often felt alone in this venture against the wave of students who needed diverse support in my classroom.

Inclusive, lesson planning tools shared through EALA’s Resource Library, such as the 5/15/45 tool by CAST and the TIES Center, would have felt like a liferaft. This specific 5/15/45 tool provides educators, no matter what stage they are in the planning process, with structured increments of support to incorporate inclusive strategies into the lessons they’re building. I, and my students, would have loved this support!

And though this one resource may have been metamorphic for increasing inclusive practices and using time efficiently, there are other waves of barriers and obstacles in classrooms across the country.

At the time, I didn’t know of a hub—for free information at least—that educators could go to, and trust, when looking for resources that support the variability of learners, like students with disabilities or learning differences. How do you shift and support a new student in your classroom who learns in a way that is different than you have ever taught, for instance? In my second year of teaching, I had an 8th-grade student who was visually impaired. She was an amazing student and advocate for herself and taught me so many strategies that supported her diverse learning. But what about the students who don’t yet know what works for them? Rather than scrolling through Google, sifting through the myriad of both trustworthy and untrustworthy articles and resources, EALA offers the Resource Library.

I am so excited that I now have the time to help curate and vet resources within the Resource Library, which contains just over a thousand curated pieces of content aimed to support a positive, and inclusive, learning environment for all students. A thousand resources focused on supporting students with disabilities and learning differences in a variety of learning environments (remote, hybrid, or in person) may sound like a lot, but we have filters of audience, grade level, topic area, disability category, resource type, and theme. These filters, and the search function, help educators navigate to resources that meet their specific needs.

For example, I could search “SEL” and filter results to incorporate the theme “intersectional needs and considerations,” and my search goes from seven pages to four resources. Within these filtered results, I see Our Unique Identities: Facilitation Guide and Posters, a resource developed by an EALA working group. This resource was created by experts with our EALA partner organizations to provide guidance on creating space for real-life, classroom conversations (to a variety of student levels) about intersectional identities. Another resource that came up on this search was a case study, The Opportunity For Stronger Connection to Your School Community, by high school special education teacher, Kareem Neal. In this case study, he discusses the online tools and strategies he used to connect with his students during remote instruction amidst the stay-at-home orders of the pandemic. 

So EALA has the Resource Library, which provides resources from case studies, to resource compilations, to strategies that you can use today in the classroom. We have EdWebinars and the EALA podcast for those morning drives or walks after work (very important) that range from 5 minutes to 30 minutes… but what about digital learning?

I had the opportunity, like so many others, to teach during the storm that was March 2020–completely remote. No warning. No clear end date. Luckily, my students had individual Chromebooks. Luckily, I had already integrated technology and digital learning even when inside the physical classroom.

I would have loved to have the EALA Tech Tool Library, though. The Tech Tool Library holds accessibility information for the most popular edtech products educators use. I used tools like these in my classroom, and since then, digital tools have expanded even more. What I didn’t do at the time (which I know better now) was search through the settings and website subpages to find the accessibility information. At the time, my students often found these features on their own, which was great! But what about those who didn’t? What if my students were hybrid or remote and they didn’t know? What about those who were struggling academically or as unidentified recipients of IEPs; could these supports have changed things?

EALA’s Tech Tool Library puts this information all in one place. Simply click on a tool and see accessibility information, as well as (if available) supportive articles surrounding accessibility implementation all at once. Alongside the most popular edtech tools that educators are already using in their classrooms, are tools that educators may not already know about but support inclusivity across classrooms. One such tool is Along, a digital reflection tool designed to help educators make each student feel seen and understood. It lets students share reflections (in a variety of forms) directly with their teacher through a digital platform. It even has sample prompts to help educators and students get started. And, Along is accessible to all learners. Tools like Along can serve as a rope of connection for students, or a life jacket for educators–who struggle in the waters of communication and relationship building—activities we know are vital to an inclusive classroom.

I found my boat in the storm with the Educating All Learners Alliance. Now I want to share this support with as many educators as possible. The best part: EALA does not just keep educators and students merely above water; it has the life jackets and ropes of connectivity with a team of sailors working, like me, to propel innovative ideas forward. I am excited to continue collaborating with educators, listening to their success and challenges, and working within the alliance to find creative solutions.

Three Tips to Consider:

• Prioritize work/life balance! Use the tools that amazing organizations, like EALA’s 100 partners, are creating to support you and your students.
• Teach to the variability of each and every learner. They are worth it. And, free tools like the 5/15/45 tool and Along will help use less of your precious time.
• Savor every sweet moment. Even though it can feel overwhelming at times, remember to have fun and take joy in the little victories.

Treah Hutchings taught 7th and 8th grade English in Kansas City and Dallas, Texas. She is currently the Special Education Project Manager at InnovateEDU for the Educating All Learners Alliance.

The post A Lifeboat in an Education Crisis: Supporting Educators through Inclusive Actions appeared first on Getting Smart.

Time. Arguably, it is the most valuable commodity anyone could have. For educators, time can be a sparkling prize held just out of reach. The chasm between is filled with deadlines, test requirements, homework to edit, meetings to attend, lessons to plan, a dog to feed, family to care for, and a positive mindset to maintain. Whew. Many calming breaths are needed when addressing the issues educators continue to face today.

One of the ways my team at Project Unicorn seeks to eliminate the workload in the life of a teacher, and school administrators, is by sharing the importance of data interoperability. Interoperability is a term that, while technical, underlies many commonplace applications and conveniences. Whether it’s the Bluetooth connection between a headset and a phone, or the ability to withdraw cash from a local ATM while traveling, interoperability helps things work when we need them to. When it comes to student data, educators often spend valuable time transferring data from system to system to complete everyday tasks, such as the simple goal of taking attendance. They’re faced with hours of additional work because the edtech systems and platforms available do not communicate with each other or enable the secure and easy transfer of student information.

Schools districts can start tackling this problem by taking action,  such as by signing the Project Unicorn School Network pledge. This pledge was created by the 16 diverse organizations that make up the Project Unicorn Steering Committee, which is invested in furthering the use of data interoperability. Signing the free pledge signals a district’s commitment to securing and leveraging interoperable data to improve student learning. Pledge signatories can access resources, technical assistance, events, and scholarships to support technology selection and procurement.

Ultimately, the increased demand for interoperability drives the edtech ecosystem to implement better interoperability practices. Pledge signatories commit to prioritizing the secure access, privacy, and interoperability of their edtech products, which empowers educators and families to engage more deeply in their students’ education. Meanwhile, they will improve access to that most valuable educator asset: time.

Two tips to consider:

Don’t ignore the capacity needs of educators in their efforts to provide the best quality education to students across the country.

Prioritize your time by signing the Project Unicorn School Network pledge and begin your journey towards seamless, secure data management.

Elise Hawthorne is the Technical Support and Implementation Lead for Project Unicorn at InnovateEDU.

The post Treating Data as our Most Valuable Asset appeared first on Getting Smart.

Now more than ever, trusted resources are as good as gold. More than a year of uncertainty with the COVID-19 pandemic, during which some elected officials pilloried scientists for speaking truth, left a lot of people confused, skeptical, and distrustful. But now that the COVID-19 vaccines are available at scale, it’s imperative that society build back that confidence and trust in science again so more people feel comfortable getting a vaccine.

But how do we do that? People crave facts. They desire actionable health insights. They seek confidence in the notion that they can rely on official information. 

As society looks to vaccinations to help us achieve herd immunity and get to the other side of this pandemic, Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools (LAB) and EquityByDesign.org have teamed up to develop the School Vaccine Hub—a free, online resource that empowers K-12 educators to help local school communities understand and manage plans for COVID-19 vaccinations. This centralized platform offers credible vaccine information and accompanying curriculum and tools that schools can use to promote the uptake of COVID-19 vaccinations, and address fears and concerns about vaccines in America’s diverse public-school communities. Some of the resources are translated into languages beyond English, including Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, and Korean.

Central to this project is the idea that schools can advance vaccination equity by making trusted information available from trusted local community leaders. This local approach will help communities overcome vaccine hesitancy to defeat COVID-19, while giving schools a vital role to play in rebuilding public trust.

Our team—including colleagues from a host of leading health and education organizations— identified and vetted over 400 trustworthy resources from more than 350 different entities; the Hub hosts 75 of the most relevant, highest-quality resources. We vetted each of these resources against a rubric we developed earlier this year. 

The Hub is connected to the broader Educating All Learners Alliance (EALA) effort to share trustworthy, evidence-backed solutions that helped schools reimagine a safe approach to in-school, remote, and hybrid school during the pandemic. EALA placed an emphasis on ensuring the continuity of special education services during remote instruction, spotlighting best practice approaches for schools and educators across the country. Like the Hub, EALA prioritizes equity above all else.

Anatomy of a Hub

The School Vaccine Hub concept began to take form in December. As the national conversation around vaccines gained momentum, we noticed that no one was providing a coordinated set of trusted resources for schools and educators.

By February, we started collecting these materials from credible, non-partisan sources such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the World Health Organization. We sought data from public health institutions such as Johns Hopkins University and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Then we broadened the search to include independent journalism projects from media organizations such as CNN, NPR, ProPublica, The Atlantic, Quartz, the New York Times, and the 19th.

We also teamed up with the COVID Collaborative, a national assembly of leading experts and institutions that has partnered with the Ad Council to create a COVID-19 vaccine public education campaign.

We added content from respected institutions, with information such as vaccine comparison overviews from Yale Medicine, state-by-state data vaccination data from Our World in Data, and “COVID-19 Vaccination Communication: Applying Behavioral and Social Science to Address Vaccine Hesitancy and Foster Vaccine Confidence” from the National Institute of Health.

Brooklyn LAB co-developed curricular resources for the Hub that are intended to engage students, too. “Teachers can use these lesson plans to empower students with science-based facts about the risks of the virus and the efficacy of the vaccine to encourage impactful conversations with family members and others who may be hesitant to get vaccinated,” said Max Koltuv of SOAR Education Partners, who worked with LAB to develop the curriculum.

Les Lynn, director of Argument-Centered Education, created a debate unit curriculum, especially for the School Vaccine Hub. “This mini-unit is designed to teach students about COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, its sources, and solutions criticality, through the lens of evidence-based arguments,” said Lynn. “Students will have the chance to research, write, analyze, respond to, and evaluate arguments made on vaccine hesitancy from across the spectrum.” 

Over the course of two months, we whittled down these resources to several dozen of the highest impact, free items. As the dataset grew, we began to develop a rubric by which to measure and evaluate the resources we had pulled. 

What’s next

We have designed the School Vaccine Hub to be organic and grow over time. Our goal is to feature the most relevant, current information on the COVID-19 vaccine to support equitable access to information for school communities. As vaccines become available for younger people, we will continue to review data and share it. We expect to add new material to the Hub in the weeks and months ahead. 

We have also invited schools, medical institutions, media platforms, and public health entities to nominate curricular tools, articles, videos, or other resources to share on the Hub.

All told, the School Vaccine Hub will reach thousands of schools through a distribution partnership with more than 80 educational organizations from the EALA, including the National Center for Learning Disabilities, the Center for Learner Equity, InnovateEDU, Digital Promise and ISTE. We look forward to seeing schools embrace the resource, and hope it will empower them to address hesitancy and spearhead vaccination efforts in their respective communities.

For more see:

• How Schools Can Promote Vaccination and Address Hesitancy: A 10-Point Plan that Puts Equity First
• Meeting the Challenge of Reopening: How Laboratory School Communities Can Power Human-Centered Design and Inclusive Innovation

• How to Reopen Schools: A 10-Point Plan Putting Equity at the Center
• To Reopen, America Needs Laboratory Schools
• Preparing to Reopen: Six Principles That Put Equity at the Core
• Reopening Schools: A Scheduling Map for Educators to Plan the Who, What, When, Where, and How of Learning this Fall
• How We Move Forward: Practicing Three Inclusive, Anti-Racist Mindsets for Reopening Schools
• Schools Need a Success Coach for Every Learner
• Preparing for a Healthy and Safe Return to School: Public School Facilities Planning in the Era of COVID-19
• Educating All Learners Alliance Launches Flagship Site, Shares Personas Educators Can Use to Understand Students’ Lived Experience During COVID-19
• Five Principles to Help Provide Our School Communities With the Communications They Deserve

L. Arthi Krishnaswami is the founder of the Community Success Institute and an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh

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The post Why We Built a Hub for Vetted Vaccination Resources for Public Schools appeared first on Getting Smart.